RSS Feed
Archive for April, 2013
Earth Day: Time to Recognize the Rights of Nature
Posted by CNBC: Terry Tamminen on April 22nd, 2013
CNBC: It's Earth Day 2013, and it's a good time to step back and see how we've been doing since the first one 1970. That's when 20 million people took to the streets to protest rivers on fire, DDT-poisoned birds, sewage on beaches and a devastating oil spill off the pristine Santa Barbara, Calif., coast. Soon after, many of our basic national environmental laws were passed in direct response to this massive grassroots movement.
Is there another wave of this activism coming?
Since those early days,...
Ark. Oil Spill Probe Falls to Understaffed Agency With Close Industry Ties
Posted by InsideClimate: Katherine Bagley on April 22nd, 2013
InsideClimate: Just a day after roughly one million gallons of heavy Canadian crude [3] oil spilled into Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board announced it was launching a formal investigation into the incident. It quickly set up shop in a local hotel and conducted dozens of interviews with pipeline workers, local officials and residents. It did field and laboratory analysis of the ruptured pipeline in its own labs. And its investigators pored over the responsible company’s...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Ark. Oil Spill Probe Falls to Understaffed Agency With Close Industry TiesWhy is Spain Pushing Back on Shale?
Posted by Forbes: Christopher Coats on April 22nd, 2013
Forbes: Spain pushed back against European shale with a local vote in the northern region of Cantabria mounted a vote against the practice of hydraulic fracking amid mounting concerns about its environmental impact.
While the vote is only a local effort, the region possesses the largest potential reserve of shale gas in the country, effectively removing the Spain’s surest bet for domestic production and outside investment from the table. In addition to hosting the largest potential reserves in Spain,...
Report: UK will need gas in the future – but must avoid ‘carbon lock-in’
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on April 22nd, 2013
BusinessGreen: The UK must continue its policy of closing coal-fired power stations to meet its climate targets and should switch plants to run on biomass or gas to reduce emissions over the coming decades.
Significant investments will also be needed in energy efficiency, nuclear and new renewable generation as well as carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, according to a major new report published today by Carbon Connect, an independent cross-party forum chaired by former Energy Minister Charles Hendry...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Report: UK will need gas in the future – but must avoid ‘carbon lock-in’Climate Change is Finally Real for the American People
Posted by Triple Pundit: Rosana Francescato on April 22nd, 2013
Triple Pundit: 2012 seems set to go down in history as the year in which climate change became real for the United States. Over a period of six months, New York City flooded, the biggest drought in half a century settled into the Midwest, and wildfires burned 9.3 million acres in one of the worst fire seasons ever recorded.
By July last year, over 40,000 daily heat records had been broken in the U.S.
The question now is whether last year’s epic run of epic events will lead to new momentum for climate solutions....
Human actions threaten the world’s pollinating insects
Posted by PlanetEarth: Tamera Jones on April 22nd, 2013
PlanetEarth: A combination of multiple, mostly man-made pressures are largely responsible for the continued global decline in honeybees, bumblebees, and other insect pollinators, say scientists. The oil-collecting bee Rediviva longimanus delves deep into the orchid Pterygodium schelpei to extract oil with absorbent hairs on its elongated front feet. It seems individual stresses like intensive farming, climate change, the spread of alien species and diseases are almost entirely to blame for pollinator losses....
Iceland Project Plays Dice With Nature, And Loses
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 22nd, 2013
Inter Press Service: Since the controversial Karahnjukar dam in East Iceland was brought into operation in 2006, conditions in the downstream Lagarfljot lake have become much worse, according to information gathered by the energy company Landsvirkjun. Some of the changes are irreversible, scientists say.
The information divulged by Landsvirkjun comes from a draft report that was presented to the local municipal council.
Lagarfljot lake is 92 km long and is actually a series of lakes with a river running through...
Public Comment Period Ending on Controversial Keystone Report
Posted by InsideClimate: John H. Cushman Jr. on April 22nd, 2013
InsideClimate: Advocates and opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline are due to file detailed comments on its environmental impacts on Monday, after the State Department refused to extend the comment period, which environmental groups had complained was too short.
As many as a million members of the public are expected to meet the comment deadline, which by happenstance fell on Earth Day, April 22. Comments are also expected from industry, labor and environmental groups on both sides of the debate over the proposed...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Public Comment Period Ending on Controversial Keystone ReportThis Building Is Supergreen. Will It Be Copied?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 22nd, 2013
National Public Radio: One of the world's greenest office buildings formally open its doors Monday - Earth Day. It's a project of the environmentally progressive Bullitt Foundation. Its ambition is bold: to showcase an entirely self-sustaining office building hoping that others will create similar projects.
The first thing that strikes you about the new Bullitt Center is the windows. Walking up to the building in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, six stories of floor-to-ceiling glass soars above you.
And there's...
Analysis: BP’s legal gamble may trim spill bill by billions
Posted by Reuters: Kathy Finn and Braden Reddall on April 22nd, 2013
Reuters: BP Plc's attempt to get a U.S. federal court to pin at least a sizeable amount of the blame for the Deepwater Horizon disaster on other companies may have saved it billions of dollars.
After failing to settle claims from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill through negotiations, the British oil company opted in February to go to trial with plaintiffs ranging from small businesses to the U.S. government over the damages it will face.
The decision rests with U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier, who...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Analysis: BP’s legal gamble may trim spill bill by billions